Sleeping Beauty
by poisonouschicken
Summary: Cuddy surveys her territory while he sleeps. SLIGHT fluff.


**Just a short one-shot to get my brain back into writing. And House needed a break from Eye for an Eye and War Wounds. Was going to write a slightly more...*ahem* _mature_ Huddy story, but chickened out. **

**Reviews are appreciated.**

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Cuddy awoke in annoyance. Something was tickling her ear in repetitive bursts, constant and unrelenting. It didn't help that it was accompanied by a strange buzz that disrupted the morning tranquility. Irritated, her sleep-muddled brain sought to escape, and she rolled her body over, her arm coming up to clasp the pillow to her ear, only to find she was trapped, her arm pinned to her side by something heavy. Slightly alarmed, she twisted round and immediately found her impatience ebbing away.

House was spooned up against her, his features slack and his mouth hanging slightly open as he snored softly into her ear. Gently turning around in his embrace to face him, Cuddy smiled softly as House's arm - solid and warm - tightened marginally around her.

Moments like these were rare. Whenever they spent the night together, House was often awake before her, his leg and hyperactive nature preventing him from having uninterrupted stretches of sleep. Instead, his body sought rest by grabbing power naps, snatching a few minutes in his office or in weird pockets around the hospital. When he wasn't driving her insane by bouncing off the walls in the middle of the night, he drove her insane by avoiding clinic duty.

The soft rays of dawn were streaming in from the cracks in the curtain, dusting over one side of his face, smoothing out the wrinkles and catching in his hair and stubble, illuminating him so he looked almost …_angelic_. The other side of his face, however, was shadowed, and she could plainly see the crow's feet and pain lines – some people might mistake them for laugh lines, but she knew better. Cuddy stretched out an arm to card through the gray strands of hair at his temples. She remembered when they were a deeper shade of chestnut, but that was a long time ago. She scooted closer and kissed him on one eyelid, and chuckled when he snuffled and turned his head into the pillow; away from the intrusion. Even asleep he shied away from affectionate displays. Through his thinning curls she could see the tiny marks on his scalp where his skull had been mercilessly drilled open a few years ago at a foolhardy exercise in self-sacrifice.

Cuddy placed a fingertip in the indent on the side of his nose. He never actually told her how he got it, but it can't have been pleasant. Her hand trailed lower, tracing the deep groove of his philtrum, over his lips and down the stubbled column of his neck. Her mood sobered as her fingers touched the faded scar, just above his jugular, faded now and barely visible. She swiped her thumb over the mark a couple of times, as though trying to erase it from his skin, before moving down to its twin on House's bare torso, just below the blade of his ribcage. Her guilt over the incident was assuaged by the success of the Ketamine treatment, and she never forgot how he bounded into her office on the day of his return, eyes clear and alight with joy. Of course, the guilt eventually returned with his pain a few days after. She whispered a shamed apology, knowing he would never accept it were he conscious.

Her hand travelled the length of his body, skimming across his hip and landing on his thigh. The crater was partially hidden by his boxers, but its ugliness was still glaring, its raw edges marring the pale skin, jagged and angry. It tore viciously along the length of his thigh and wreaked just as much havoc in his life. Thus began a long spiral into hell.

But Cuddy knew the worst of his scars weren't adorned on his skin. She stroked the sleeping man's brow and rested her forehead against his. Her smoky gray eyes peered into the opaque membrane of his eyelids, as if she could see into his mind. She wondered how much of the pain in there can be attributed to her. They both sported mental wounds from their interactions over the years, though he seemed to possess a wider repertoire, all from different sources.

She often forgets he is the more fragile one.

Cuddy startled violently when her alarm blared loudly in the weighted silence, and she fumbled blindly for the off button before the racket woke her partner. Too late, as she soon found out a moment later when House grimaced and whined, his acerbic snark replacing the innocent vulnerability.

"Didn't know I was sharing the bed with another shrieking harpy."

Cuddy playfully slapped him on the chest as he rubbed his eyes and yawned widely.

"Good morning. It's time for you to get up anyway."

She hopped out of the bed and made her way into the bathroom as he grumbled incoherently at her.

"I heard that!"

His reply was muffled as she closed the bathroom door.

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Cuddy stepped back out to the bedroom and was rewarded to the sight of her boyfriend conked out with his head resting against the headboard, his hair rumpled and snoring obnoxiously. He made a gallant effort to sit up, but that was apparently as far as he got. She snorted in amusement and picked up her clock, resetting it to sound off half an hour later, and hid the device in the drawer where he kept his clothes, leaving it slightly open so the alarm won't be muffled by the wood.

She padded over to House and drew the covers up around him, placing an affectionate kiss on his forehead before turning to leave.

Before she closed the bedroom door, Cuddy stared at the impression her lipstick left on his skin, a round red smear, and hoped she gave him a kinder mark than the others he wore.

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**Take nothing but feelings, leave nothing but reviews.**

**...That completely did not work.**


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